Amazon Kindle attempts to reignite e-book market

Originally posted by RockDaMan:If it were up to the geeks, the iPod would never have made it out the gate. I won't predict success for this thing --- but the geeks will have no play in making it successful or not.

The common man will.

The common man is going to drop $400 on a clunky looking electronic device who's primary purpose is to read books? Books you have to buy seperately?

Geeks are exactly the audience they need to be trying to win over, at that kind of price.

Those of you who are saying it's ugly: I thought so too. But there's something about the photos which seems to accentuate 'the ugly, the ugly'; but go to the Amazon product page and watch the video. You'll see a guy carrying it around airports, campus, & home, handling it, etc. Suddenly it doesn't look nearly as bad.

Actually, it looks worse, it is in fact, hideous.

I agree, searching is a nice feature, but personally, I would have made the whole front a screen, and made the keyboard a slide out or fold out or similar.

Obvious buttons are also bad, as much as I have never been terribly impressed with Apples mice, the "no-button" idea, where the entire device is a button, or simply squeezing the side, is a much nicer way to go.

In fact where I to design one, I think I might consider a touch sensitive strip across the lower half of the screen, possibly similar to the original Palm Pilot, turning the page would be a matter of running your finger along the strip in the direction you want to turn, a much closer metaphor to existing books.

You could imagine it as an iPod tho couldn't you?

Cover flow? Browse your books by Title, Author, Genre... I don't think you'd use the finger flick idea to read the book tho, you'd still just want to turn a page at a time, which is probably my biggest complaint about reading from a computer screen not matching up with reading from a book, the need to carefully(relatively anyway) track the text and move the mouse at the same time, and some applications seem to have differing opinions on pages.. Some of them replace the entire page with the new page, others seem to leave the last line or two from the last page on the screen, and still others seem to scroll a page + 1 line, meaning you have to scroll back a notch to see what you missed.

Originally posted by nmerriam:Jesus, I can't believe Bezos has the balls to show this thing in public much less try to convince people it's the future.

That's really what it boils down to, right there. If you're paying $400 for this thing, you're not just buying a gadget, you're buying into the whole platform, long-term. And absolutely nothing about this device looks like a paradigm shift.

Needs color. Needs gesture-driven touch UI. Needs higher resolution. Needs more screen, less hideous buttons. Needs to be kick-ass. What it needs to be is an iPod Touch, with a screen 4-5X its current size.

Even though it looks a bit better in the videos, it's still kinda ugly. Seriously I half expected Gil Gerard and Twiki presenting it in the video. They should have gone with a slider design if they wanted a keyboard. Right now, it looks like someone ran over an Apple IIe with a steamroller

It's too expensive for a device w/o Wi-Fi. It should at least be cheaper than the iPhone. In the least, it should have price parity with the iPod Touch. I know, completely different devices, but those are the consumer dollars your fighting for.

The DRM seems completely geared towards the publisher's benefit and not the public. If you're going to offer DRM, it should support a non-DRM format-- especially at the $400 pricepoint.

conceptually and specifications-wise, I think it's a brilliant device. But the devil is in the details. I think I'd jump on a revision 2 for around $200.

Of course, all my objections would go away if they offered the Richard Feynman physics lectures on this thing.

Come to think of it, the more content they offer, the more attractive this device is for me- bad ID and all.

They need to have these in physical stores or even kiosks to convince me.

use tech that doesn't exist yetgive it awaygive away the booksprovide lifetime wi-fi AND lifetime ev-domake it look like Apple built it

Gosh, I can't understand why everyone here isn't the head of a major corporation! Well, except for that part about "selling stuff, making money".

You forgot:

-No limit on format so you can put all your "already purchased" e-books on their with their non-DRM formats

Not that searching for 30 seconds for a converter is actually that hard. I'm still seeing a lot of ugly comments, are people seriously trolling bars with this thing attached at the hip? "Hey baby, want to see my book collection?"

Originally posted by adminfoo:DRM is a necessary evil at this stage of the game.

This I agree with. Looking back at that post about someone mentioning how this wasn't how Apple did iTunes I really can only say (and I think someone else already mentioned) that this in many ways how iTunes started out. DRM was a necessary evil because of fear by the content providers.

Other than the hardware already existed with an install base (both the portable player AND you could listen on your Mac PC) and Apple didn't have a prior vested interest in selling music in CD format. Apple had cracked the chicken and egg problem and they could push content without fear of cannibalizing sales.

Amazon is trying to get both the hardware and the content off the ground at the same time. With tech that might not quite be there yet, it certainly isn't for me yet, and a funky looky bit of hardware and odd importing. That doesn't bode well for runaway success. Their EVDO might keep it from out-and-out cratering [in the US] though, if that works well in practice it's a pretty big thing. Definately a step forward.

P.S. The tech not quite being there is likely a huge barrier to Apple right now. Jobs being Jobs, and this being books, there is no way he's going to float a half-assed product. Way too close to his heart.

Originally posted by Tyler X. Durden:So yeah, call me back when someone's got a 1024x768 tablet without the fugly border. THe frivilous fashion sense in me says slightly warmer whites would be nice too, like slightly yellowing paper. -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_cool.gif -- I expect something in the price range I'll bite at in about 4 to 5 years because I realize this is pretty demanding.

DRM may not be necessary. Yes, it constrains the bulk of the population, certainly not anyone posting here.

Microsoft has to be embarassed at how quickly their LIT format was thoroughly and publicly broken.

I think Adobe has one of the stronger encryptions right now but I don't understand the desire for PDF e-books. The format is just Postscript commands, not efficient in either file size or processing speed (hint, it is slow to display on my Palm too). Its only value to me is nearly-universal reading of CAD drawings, still requiring attention to conversion/Distiller details.

More important in the scheme of things, Bain Books discovered an increase in printed book sales for titles that they offered on-line DRM-free! That is a very encouraging finding.

If that trend continues then tell me again why DRM is necessary? Further, book publishers seem caught in the same disconnect as music publishers. You can't charge nearly the same for an e-book as a physical book and expect no consequences. And note most folks compare list prices, not typical discount book prices. I feel abused buying an e-book for the same price as the discounted physical book! They are giving us too much incentive to investigate the dark side.

I think some of the people posting about text books are really not thinking this through. Sure, I hate that they are heavy to be carrying around and I would love a search function. But I myself (and I have seen many other students do it) spend a lot of time flipping through the pages, going back and forth constantly. The search function and (I assume) a bookmark function will help, but just flipping through pages will NOT be the same, as you will really notice the refresh time every time you hit previous or next. It's a basic limitation of the e-ink technology which for every other type of book would be just fine, but I for one would not want to have to deal with it on my textbooks.

As for the DRM, it sucks because of the same reason apple DRM sucks: once you're looking to buy anything non-amazon, you'll be unable to take your old library with you. You're effectively locked into their format. This is why anno 2007 I still go into the store, find a non DRMed CD and rip it myself, rather than buy online. Call me crazy, but I think being stuck with amazon for the rest of my life is a pretty big limitation. Fortunately for Amazon, Apple has shown that most consumers really don't care, they might have some problems with the price point though.

I should have one in my hands tomorrow. It's going to be a present for my wife. (hope she doesn't read this!)

She has had the Sony for a year now. The biggest issue for her is that she has a Mac and she can't use her computer to get more books. She uses mine and it's almost a painful process for her. Hook up cables, open software, download, download to book and then finally she has something. The selection is so-so for her but she loves having a few books at the ready wherever she is. She's also a voracious reader and easily knocks off a book a night when she's in reading mode.

Now, I admit that this Amazon thing isn't sexy. But the features? That's what sold me. It's close enough in performance from the reading aspect to the Sony that I know it will work well for her. But, being able to immediately download books to it without a computer? That's worth the entire price of admission to me. She can find a book with the keyboard and download it all without moving. No going to the computer. Of course, she can do it online with her Mac. ++ for her. She can do this from work, sitting at the doctor's office, waiting in the parking lot for the kids to get out of school... it's mind boggling to me. Maybe I'm not as connected as many of you, but this thing intrigues me to no end. It's the closest thing to seamless portable location independent content that I've seen. The New York Times is just there every day. You do nothing. No connect. No download. No getting in range, or login or identifying yourself. Nothing. Wherever you are, today's paper just appears.

Originally posted by Tyler X. Durden:So yeah, call me back when someone's got a 1024x768 tablet without the fugly border. THe frivilous fashion sense in me says slightly warmer whites would be nice too, like slightly yellowing paper. -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_cool.gif -- I expect something in the price range I'll bite at in about 4 to 5 years because I realize this is pretty demanding.

The iLiad would be my e-reader of choice: wireless, big touch screen, tons of native formats. But you have to pay big for those features, at least right now.

Grey is cold. *brrr* Cream is WARM! Other than that, that's definately getting closer to the deal. I can live with B&W, 4-bit greyscale isn't too bad at all. Still under a pound. With a Watcom built in? Just a Watcom digitizer pad alone will run you 1/3 of that price, so that's a pretty good price all in all.

I understand price is the rub. Four years might be a little pesimistic on my part but being pleasantly surprised is also good. -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- My price is somewhere in the $250ish range.

You can't do color with E-Ink currently, and it is probably years away so the only way to do color is to move away from E-Ink. If you move away from E-Ink, there is no point in using this over any other portable device.

Have seen one in the flesh, so this is all "on paper" (pun intended...)

I'm really impressed by the concept & service features. The major features are -- e-ink (which should give good battery life; a week's worth of reading)-- Fast, free & computer-less book downloads. I wonder how long they contractually commit to providing the EVDO network, if at all. -- A lot of content. Opening it from the get-go for user-generated content is also forward-thinking

Obviously, (1)price is still steep, but they have to start somewhere (while I'm a heavy reader, I probably won't be in the market until it's ~$200-$250, not because I can't afford it but because I figure any mobile device I carry with me will be lost/stolen/damaged within 2 years. I need to feel comfortable taking this with me almost anywhere I'd take a book) (2) It's ugly, but that's got to be easy to fix in the next version.(3) Any missing format support is easiest to fix -- give them a couple of months for SW updates.

It's clearly a focussed device, and that's a good thing -- add too many functions and you lose the UI simplicity.Limited browsing is fine -- remember, it's not a color screen anyway. Supporting email etc. would need more memory and probably make the business model fairly complex, as there's no ISP in the loop; I presume what they do now is pay Sprint per-MB for downloads, and that works out fine since that would be roughly proportional to the usage (# of books)

If it works well in the US they'll need a UMTS version for other markets... I wonder how the economics and roaming issues will work out.I don't think the lack of WiFi is a big deal, as they have both USB and SD card as fallback for EVDO.

This is very disappointing. Sheesh, can't anyone get something so simple right? It makes me feel like trying to design an e-book reader myself.

You know, this sort of disappointment just reminds me -- *looks around his room at various stuff* -- how awful a state industrial design is in nowadays. I really think that nobody designing stuff cares -- for them it's a job to pay the bills -- they crank out ugly useless crap all day, and evidently it doesn't bother them.

Since I'm not in any danger of getting fired for talking about it now...

Technically it does PDF, just not well. It is something we have a ton of requests for and are/have been working on it for a while.

It's ugly. On purpose. How pretty are the pages on the inside of a physical book? About that same as a Kindle.

The interface is slow, no touch screen, back light blah blah. Is a book backlit? Do books have touch screens? The idea is that it's a portable bookcase. If you want a pda then get one. As for the interface being slow, THANK GOD you guys don't have to deal with the earlier hardware/software combos. The other reason it's slow is it is actually ink inside. How fast can you physically write something down perfectly legibly every time?

No color display. Do books have color displays? Really think hard about having honest to god ink in there and sorting out how to not get all the colors mixed or displayed wrong.

Although it is possible for book purchases with US credit cards abroad, it is pretty much limited to the States because of the EVDO network and we aren't able to ship them anywhere BUT the US.

It's expensive. There's no solid answer for this and I haven't been given one, but I expect a lot of it is it's brand new, no wireless charges (other than email), R&D and implementation. After all, we've been working on it for about three years.

Anyway, I'm not so much trying to make it out as the be all end all of digital book devices as I'm just saying if you take it for what it is and was meant to be it makes sense.

If you guys have any questions go ahead and ask, I may not have all the answers but I'm part of the team that does technical support for it, I have to deal with these questions 60 hours a week.

My thoughts on it are it doesn't seem like it does as much as it could or should but you really do need to use it to really get a good idea of how much it already does. I have to deal with it every day at work and it is a lot cooler than I initially thought.

One more note about the price, it is pretty expensive and ugly for what you would expect at $400 but it seems that isn't a problem for everyone, we sold out about 3 hours after launch.

It was made to be a digital book, who the hell cares what it looks like, what color it is. I know I'm not the only avid reader but how many of you people buy a book based on IT'S COVER?

People wanting a color screen, mp3 player etc etc etc. Why, it a device to read with. TO READ.

It has an extremely long battery life and the most important thing, I doubt it heats up at all, VERY important for a digital device you want to hold for long periods of time. THe beefier the CPU you through in there plus a GPU for the audio and video plus color screen etc and you introducing more and more heat. This also kills your battery life.

The price is great. $10 for a book that would be $20 plus when released. Plus they store a copy online forever.

People actually have an issue with the buttons. Can you curl up in the bed propped on one shoulder and turn pages on most of those other reader? The iPod by it's nature you would need both hands to operate. I know I've read with one hand many times turning the pages with my thumb cause I was eating, or drinking coffee, etc. The huge button on either side are great.

I'm not an expert on the medium but it seems that the screen refreshing was not due to a slow cpu but the page is literally written eveytime you turn the page.

Lets be honest when your reading a book, it takes time for you eyes to see the words, your brain to register, etc. I doubt it much quicker than the refresh. Honestly the refresh is faster than flipping a page. That complaint is so off base.

I like the bookmarking feature as I'm a dog ear reader and sometimes, well it just doesn't stay, picking up where I left off is great, as is the bookmarking.

As to the price maybe someone can do an estimate for it once it's bought and broken into. What's the licensing costs for the E-Ink? Need I reming you don't ever have to pay the bandwidth getting your titles?

I dunno it seems great, I read so much it's retarded but at one point I had so many books it was a chore just moving THEM much less everything else I own. The thought of having as many and moving a device and some SD cards is great.

And has anyone else tried E-Ink. There's a reason there is no backlighting. Think about it, can you read a book in the dark? You use this like a physical book, grab a chair turn on a lamp and go.

I just don't see where all the complaints are? It's a device to read words... all that other stuff is not what it's intended for.

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted."-- Plutarch

The pleasures of reading hardly need to be belabored, but for many a bookworm, part of the pleasure stems from the book itself: the heft, the feel of the paper, the cover art, even the dry rustle of the pages as they are turned. Reading a book is a physical as well as a mental experience, especially if one is reading for pleasure.

But a good writer can draw a reader in and make the book itself disappear -- that is in fact what every author hopes for, that his prose or poetry will draw the reader into a world of the mind and make the physical world disappear for awhile.

Paper based books are a wonderful technology: they are robust, durable, portable, require no external power source (except for light to see by), and have become affordable for almost everyone thanks to Gutenberg’s printing press. As repositories of human knowledge, books have served as the bedrock upon which much of modern civilization is built: we transmit much of our knowledge, art, and wisdom to future ages via the medium of the book. In fact, in terms of *back catalog*, books have every other medium beaten hollow: no matter the subject or topic, there has been at least one book written about it.

For all that, books have serious drawbacks. They are indeed robust (some books have survived for many hundreds of years), but suffer from weather effects (rain, wind, etc.). The ink can fade; the paper can dry out and crumble; the binding may break or dissolve. Books can be bulky; many a bookworm has had to buy additional bookshelves to house a growing collection. Many readers with poor eyesight find the print too small (and the selection of large-print books too sparse). And many non-fiction books can be hard to navigate: footnotes, endnotes, annotations, indices, glossaries...it all involves a lot of paging back and forth, breaking the flow of concentration.

The promise of the e-book is that it will combine the traditional pleasures of book reading while at the same time overcoming the drawbacks. The Amazon Kindle is simply the latest of series of devices that has promised to entice we bookworms away from paper and into the world of the electron.

WHAT THE KINDLE ISN’T---------------------

Many people are complaining that for the cost of a Kindle and a few books, you can get a vastly more functional portable computer (like the Asus Eee PC). But I think that this complaint misses the whole point of having a gadget dedicated to reading. For one thing, the form factor of most laptops, media players, and smartphones is all wrong for recreational reading: the screens are too small (or prone to glare, or of the wrong aspect ratio, etc.), they are uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time, and they are too complicated to use if all you want to do is read. The batteries run down. The interface(s) are not specifically designed for reading, and can be hard for many people -- older people, and those with arthritis or other physical infirmities -- to manipulate. These gadgets often have too many buttons, buttons that are too small or wkwardly placed; and the software environment is often complex and exacerbates the problems with the button or keyboard layout.

Complaining about the Kindle being ugly also strikes me as somewhat silly. It's not intended as a fashion accessory, as the iPod and many cellphones are. The whole point of the gadget is to be unobtrusive while at the same time being functional. I suppose that Amazon could have finished it in black and chrome (or neon pink), but how would that improve the experience of reading books? Its form is dictated by its function, as it should be. (Although I'm not wild about the keyboard placement or layout, I think a touchscreen is probably too power-intensive and too expensive at this point in time.)

So complaining that the Kindle isn't as functional as a laptop misses the point. It's not a computer; it's not a music player (although it can play MP3's); it's not a video player. It is a device intended, first and foremost, to present the written word to readers in a way that is pleasant, simple, and straightforward.

WHAT THE KINDLE IS (OR ATTEMPTS TO BE)--------------------------------------

E-Books have been on the horizon for as long as portable electronic devices have existed -- before that, even. (Science fiction writers have been positing some variant of this kind of device since the "Flash Gordon" days.) Gizmos like Apple's Newton and the Palm PDA raised hopes that finally the day had arrived, but disappointment always followed. The reasons were varied, but they always boiled down to the simple fact that paper books were simply better vehicles for the printed word than electronic devices. And in spite of all the advances in the past decade -- better screens, more memory, wireless networking, and so on -- this fact has remained dominant. It's hard to beat a paper book as a vehicle for the written word.

The Kindle (and other readers from the likes of Sony) are the first devices to come along that can make a credible claim to replacing a paper based book. And of them all, the Kindle has struck me as the only one that clearly enhances the experience of reading. Amazon as a business was founded and built on serving bookworms like myself, and I see this philosophy embodied in the reader. It's certainly not perfect, but it's clearly designed with avid readers in mind rather than gadget-lovers.

I'm also very intrigued by the inclusion of "free" EVDO wireless networking in the unit. I have a feeling that this is why the Kindle is so expensive; Amazon is trying to roll the costs of network access into the up-front cost of the device. (Which is why $400 starts to look pretty good when you include that; how much did your $100 cell phone cost when you factor in a year's worth of cellphone bills?) And yeah, having to pay for blog content is kind of lame, but then again, it's only a couple of bucks a month -- I spend more than that on coffee in a given day. It might be worth it if you only follow a few text-heavy blogs (like Ars!).

The Kindle is a gamble, but I'm interested enough that I've decided take my chances. I ordered one along with ten or so books. I'll post my experiences after I've had a chance to play with it a bit, but I have high hopes.

Somebody asked "How many people judge a book by its cover?" Well, I know a lot of them do but that's besides the point. This device will store all your books, ever, that's the whole point, so I'd prefer it to be in a nice clean design and not looking like I just escaped from the 80s. Remember you'll be carrying this around all the time, having to look at it every day. If you really hate the design, that is just not an option.

I also see nobody addressing the DRM problem. Perhaps people don't care (in general) but I sure am not going to buy a device that locks me in to the same format forever. If Sony comes out with a good looking, cheap, portable e-reader with better battery life (perhaps even an EVDO connection if you really want one) but with an incompatible format, then what are you going to do? You know you'd want to upgrade, but there's no way you can get your 200$ worth of books (20 books, conservative estimate) on this device, so you'll be stuck with the kindle (2.0 perhaps) for ever, and ever, and ever... That or you'll be raking out dough again for the same books (ah, recurring revenue stream, a company's favourite three words).

The price and the look make it look less than perfect in my opinion, but if it were not for the DRM this would be a real killer. Now, I guess it depends who you ask. Amazon said they sold out in a matter of hours, they didn't say how many devices they sold though...

Originally posted by kromagg:Somebody asked "How many people judge a book by its cover?" Well, I know a lot of them do but that's besides the point. This device will store all your books, ever, that's the whole point, so I'd prefer it to be in a nice clean design and not looking like I just escaped from the 80s. Remember you'll be carrying this around all the time, having to look at it every day. If you really hate the design, that is just not an option.

I also see nobody addressing the DRM problem. Perhaps people don't care (in general) but I sure am not going to buy a device that locks me in to the same format forever. If Sony comes out with a good looking, cheap, portable e-reader with better battery life (perhaps even an EVDO connection if you really want one) but with an incompatible format, then what are you going to do? You know you'd want to upgrade, but there's no way you can get your 200$ worth of books (20 books, conservative estimate) on this device, so you'll be stuck with the kindle (2.0 perhaps) for ever, and ever, and ever... That or you'll be raking out dough again for the same books (ah, recurring revenue stream, a company's favourite three words).

The price and the look make it look less than perfect in my opinion, but if it were not for the DRM this would be a real killer. Now, I guess it depends who you ask. Amazon said they sold out in a matter of hours, they didn't say how many devices they sold though...

Hold one in your hands, you might think different about the way it looks. I think it looks more utilitarian (like a medical device) rather than old-fashioned.

Two reasons why the DRM doesn't matter to me (and probably doesn't matter to 99% of the market):

- I'm not worried about Amazon (or some successor) leaving the market. They are big enough to survive and I see how developing this business is key to their future growth.

- 95% or more of the stuff I read (including books, newspapers, magazines, etc) is read once and only once. There are about five books that I have read more than once over the last 10 years. With the money I'd save on eBooks, I could easily afford to buy hardcopy of the books that are worth it. More importantly, I'm much more likely to find those "keepers" in the first place. Also, I would expect that someday Amazon will let you apply some of your eBook purchase cost towards hardcopy.

One presumes that Amazon is "going a Jobs"... i.e. sell DRMed content with the intention of moving to non-DRMed material when you a big enough market share to force the content providers to comply. It is, in all likelihood, the content providers that are requiring DRM. I hardly think Mr. Bezos has failed to notice the tide of negative sentiment towards all things DRM over the past year or two. Amazon must know that they would likely sell far more devices if they offered non-DRMed content, especially to tech-minded early adopters. In time, I suspect they will offer non-DRMed content and will provide a means to either un-DRMed already purchased material or provide it free of charge sans the DRM. Says the optimist.